Meade Refractor

[Neil]

Hallo everyone,
Can anyone advise Australian suppliers of Meade's new refractor which was reviewed recently in Sky and Telescope, the apo 70mm F5? Thanks and clear skies.

[LewisM]

No, but the TS version is essentially the same telescope: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop.../en/info/p6806

[Wavytone]

Typical small APO... I have the TS 70mm one as a travel scope - ordered from TS, no issues. It is a heavy little beastie solidly built with a massive focusser that will easily hold a heavy camera - and then there's a lot of glass inside.

Visually within the 32mm image circle its sharp, free of colour and the field is indeed quite flat so don't use Televue, Erfle, SWA or Plossl eyepieces with it. I have taken a few shots through it with my M4/3 camera and apart from finding focus is super critical it’s fine. My camera provide live view with 5X magnification and I don’t find focussing difficult.

But... immediately beyond 16mm off axis the image quality literally falls off a cliff - so its simply not really suited to big 2" wide field eyepieces.

For visual use I have a TEC turret on the back and a clutch of 1.25" eyepieces 4mm - 25mm.

[Earl (Earl White)]

Hi there,

Yes, we have the new Meade 70mm f5 APO refractor in our Sydney warehouse ready to send out to your local Meade dealer.

Cheers,

[Neil]

Hi Earl, what is your retail price of this scope, thank you.

[Earl (Earl White)]

Hi Neil,


We have a RRP, but being realistic, you'll find our dealers are often happy to do a deal, especially on a specialist scope like this. Msg me and I'll put you in touch with one of them.



BTW, there's a write up on it in this month's Aus Sky & Telescope if you'd like to know more.



Cheers,

[Wavytone]

Neil according to the Meade website the Meade version is an f/5 triplet. Mine is a quad - with built-in field flattener - and f/6.7. Superficially similar perhaps, but no these are definitely not the same optically.